EMOTIONAL ADAPTABILITY

Managing Emotions.

"Emotions play an important role in modulating bodily systems that influence our health... We turned to the brain to understand the mechanisms by which the mind influences the body."
Dr Davidson - Body Mind Research

“Mind is the master power that molds and makes
And we are mind, and evermore we take
The tool of thought, and shaping what we will,
Bring forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills.
We think in secret, and it comes to pass-
Our world is but our looking glass”
-James Allen

It has been well established by the scientific world that our emotions have a great effect on our total or holistic health. Mind and body were once thought to operate completely separately, but recent studies and research by scientists are showing that this isn't the case. There's now biological evidence that what we think, feel and believe can have a direct effect on the way in which our bodies function – and, consequently, on our wellbeing.

Observe your Thoughts.

Pause for a moment, just close your eyes, and become aware of what’s happening in your mind. You’ll notice that you are engaged in a perpetual internal dialogue, interpreting and evaluating what has happened, is happening, or might happen to you. The mind has an astonishing capacity to hop from one idea to the next, and most people have an average of 60,000 thoughts each day. About 59,000 of these thoughts, however, are the same ones we had yesterday. We think and do things repeatedly, and then we wonder why it’s so difficult to create something new in our lives.

Most of our thoughts originate from our past experiences, information we gathered, continue gathering on daily basis from various sources and our beliefs. Thought is followed by our internal dialogue creating a feeling and emotion, depending on the nature of the thought.

But are not our emotions natural?

Do we really have any control over our emotions?

Is it possible to hold the reins of emotion and maneuver it to where we guide?

Are emotions really manageable?

These questions always puzzle us and what we need are concrete answers for those queries.

Feelings & Emotions

A feeling is the body and mind’s response to any given situation. Some psychologists and scientists believe we have five basic feelings: joy, fear, anger, grief and love, with other feelings being variations on these five states.
An emotion is what your body does with one of these feeling states.

Emotions Positive and Negative.

Though there are broadly 7 different human emotions, according to the researchers, they each have two sides - a positive side, and a negative side. They either create Pleasure or Pain in us.

There are 7 human emotions that bring us pleasure: Love, Hope, Sex, Faith, Sympathy, Loyalty, and Optimism. The negative counterparts of these emotions are Fear, Anger, Hatred, Revenge, Jealousy, Greed, and Superstition. These are the emotions that cause us pain.

We believe that our emotions are caused by things outside of us, and are not something we have control over. But we can learn to take control of our emotional responses to the things we encounter in our daily life. We need to just remember that though we do not have the power to control what really happens in our life, but, we certainly have the power to take a positive response to the matter.
The emotions we experience are all created by us. Most of us don't realize this. Our emotions all have a purpose, whether they are positive or negative. They serve to let us know what we are moving towards. Are we heading in a direction that will bring us happiness, or are we traveling down a path that will lead to pain? Our emotions are there to guide us, so we must learn to listen to them. Suppressing unpleasant emotions or merely avoiding our negative emotions is never the answer, for we need to know what path we are on.

Our amazing Body always gives us some signals. Be aware of what our body is trying to tell us.
We also need to know that our body and mind works as one. Either one can lead and the other will follow. But the mind is the overall in charge. The power of our mind has the ability and capability to override the body. Simply put, when we always indulge in negative thoughts, illnesses arise faster.


EMOTIONS to IMMUNITY

When we have a feeling, say Fear, Joy, Love, Compassion or Euphoria, then our brain makes certain chemicals and these chemicals are called “Neuro Peptides” Neuro because they found in the Brain and Peptides because they are Protein molecules. These are literally the molecules of emotion. And these are known to the researchers for the past 25 years. These molecules of emotion are not contained only in the brain; they actually circulate all over in your body.

Your immune cells which are protecting you from diseases like infection, cancer and many other diseases have certain receptors in their cell walls where these neuropeptides or immune peptides or molecules of emotion fit like a key fitting into a lock.

In other words the immune cells which are protecting you from illnesses are eves dropping on the conversation that you have with your self – the internal dialogue (mental chattering) you are having with yourself! These conversation or internal dialogue goes on always, goes on your dreams, even in your deepest sleep and your immune cells are listening! Not only your immune cells are listening, they are also participating in your conversation because they make the same peptides that your brain makes when you think!

In other words your immune cells are thinking cells or conscious cells.
.
In fact, according to studies there is actually no difference between immune system and nervous system. The immune system is a circulating nervous system.

If you say that you have a gut feeling about such and such, you are not saying metaphorically but literally because your gut makes the same peptides that your brain makes, when you are thinking, researchers say!
This connection between the brain and the immune system is being explored by the relatively new science of psychoneuroimmunology. The processes at work in the mind/body link are highly complex. Neurotransmitters in the brain can be affected by emotions and, in turn, trigger physical reactions in other parts of the body, including the systems that combat illness. And illness, of course, affects emotions and behavior.

Stress, for example, is one area in which body and mind are strongly linked. Stress and anxiety raise levels of cortisol and adrenaline in the body, which affect the immune system. Stress has also been shown to trigger other chemicals, which are linked with ‘illness type' behavior including changes in mood and eating and sleeping patterns.

Many conditions appear to be exacerbated by stress. Studies have shown, for example, that relapses in people with multiple sclerosis can be associated with stressful events.

What is good emotional health?

People with good emotional health are aware of their thoughts, feelings and behaviors. They have learned healthy ways to cope with the stress and problems that are a normal part of life. They feel good about themselves and have healthy relationships.

However, many things that happen in your life can disrupt your emotional health and lead to strong feelings of sadness, stress or anxiety.
These things include:

• Being laid off from your job
• Having a child leave or return home
• Dealing with the death of a loved one
• Getting divorced or married
• Suffering an illness or an injury
• Getting a job promotion
• Experiencing money problems
• Moving to a new home or having a baby.

“Good” changes can be just as stressful as “bad” changes.

Poor emotional health can weaken your body's immune system, making you more likely to get colds and other infections during emotionally difficult times. Also, when you are feeling stressed, anxious or upset, you may not take care of your health as well as you should. You may not feel like exercising, eating nutritious foods or taking medicine that your doctor prescribes. Abuse of alcohol, tobacco or other drugs may also be a sign of poor emotional health.

Thoughts and emotions are habits, kind of like smoking. We keep going back to the same thoughts; especially negative ones, over and over. Emotions are the same way.

Managing Emotions. How?

We need to ask these questions once in a while.

Am I really happy with what I am doing?

If not, what is causing me unhappiness?

Am I getting disturbed and mentally agitated while I am on my job?
What causes my internal agitations?
Am I getting angry often?
Am I getting irritated?
Am I becoming a victim to others criticism?
Am I getting hurt?
Am I getting stressed up and feeling burned out?

And finally……

Who is responsible for all these emotional unrest in me?
Am I or some one or things outside?
Can I be happy?
Do I have a choice?

Please note you have a choice to be in happiness or to be in pain and remember; only YOU have that choice.

When you are ready for a change your change is only a thought away!

The Japanese X-Factor

In the 1960s, Len Syme, the first sociologist to land a job in the U. S. Department of Health, suspected that social factors had a bearing on certain diseases believed only to have dietary or environmental causes, such as heart disease, cancer or arthritis.

In one of his early attempts to tease out why rates of cardiovascular disease varied in numerous U. S. states, Syme found that the ‘culturally mobile’, as he began to call them — those who’d moved geographically from one societal culture to something quite different, particularly those who’d moved from farms to white collar city jobs – went on to get heart disease. This connection prevailed even when he’d eliminated other factors, such as smoking, blood pressure and all the other supposed major risk factors of cardiovascular disease. Social mobility – moving outside society as you knew it – made you ill.

At the School of Public Health at Berkeley, Syme teamed up with Reuell Stallones, another of Berkeley’s professors, to test his migration hypothesis with the perfect population: the Japanese who’d migrated to Hawaii and California.

The Japanese paradoxAs a race, the Japanese fascinate any student of epidemiology because they are such an apparent paradox: they have the lowest heart disease in the world, despite the fact that smoking — one of the biggest risk factors of heart disease — is virtually universal.

Japan’s longevity statistics confound all our expectations about what is required to live a long and healthy life. In fact, Japan produces the world’s largest number of centenarians: almost 18,000 people live to 100 — many of them smokers.
Epidemiologists find transplanted societies particularly instructive, as they afford an opportunity to examine just how a particular community fares when confronted with profound social, cultural or dietary upheaval.

Syme and Stallones examined heart disease risk, plus dietary factors and any social change in a pool of 12,000 men, divided up among those who lived in Japan and two groups that had emigrated to Hawaii or northern California.
Stallones was interested in whether the Japanese had low rates of heart disease because of their low-fat diet, and whether heart disease went up when the Japanese, who maintain an excellent low-fat diet in their home country adopt a typical burger-and-fries American diet, but Syme was interested in the social factor: whether moving countries and cultures was so destabilizing that it caused heart disease.

The results confounded both their expectations. The Japanese men migrating to California had five times the heart disease of those in Japan, while the heart-disease levels in Hawaii were midway between the two, so simply migrating somewhere else didn’t automatically cause disease.

Nevertheless, the results appeared to be completely independent of any of the usual supposed risk factors of heart disease, like smoking, high blood pressure, diet or cholesterol count; in fact, the Japanese population studied contained the highest number of smokers, but the lowest levels of heart disease.

Amazingly enough, their results also appeared independent of any dietary changes. Whatever the Japanese ate — whether tofu or a Big Mac — had no bearing whatever on their propensity to heart disease.

Although changes in the dietary habits made no difference in terms of heart disease, the kind of society the transplants created for themselves did. Those Japanese men who’d adopted American cultural ways suffered the increase in heart disease, while those who’d retained their traditional culture had the lowest levels of heart disease — comparable to Japanese men back home.

The most traditional group of the Japanese Americans had a heart attack rate as low as their fellow Japanese living in Japan, while those who’d adopted the Western go-ahead lifestyle increased their heart attack incidence by three to five times. These differences could not be accounted for by any of the usual risk factors. Those with social networks and social support were protect against heart disease — regardless of whether they smoked or suffer from high blood pressure.
In search of the x-factorSyme was intrigued enough by these results to travel to Japan in search of the missing x-factor of impregnable health. He interviewed scores of the Japanese to find out the single factor that most distinguished the social fabric of America from that of Japan.

What most marked their culture from that of America, his interviewees repeated in interview after interview, was that Americans were lonely. Anyone could see that. Americans even walked on the street alone.
The Japanese, particularly in southern Japan, maintained tight-knit social groups that were mutually supportive, as was the work environment. Joining a business is not unlike marrying into a family; it is, in most instances, a relationship for life.

In southern Japan, the Japanese even create ‘moai’, a kind of life-long social and financial safety net made up by the contributions of your friends and loved ones.
The heart attack rates of the Californian Japanese-Americans had nothing to do with moving from Japan, but everything to do with losing the close social ties that proved to be Japan’s secret weapon in staying healthy.

In the 1960s, Len Syme, the first sociologist to land a job in the U. S. Department of Health, suspected that social factors had a bearing on certain diseases believed only to have dietary or environmental causes, such as heart disease, cancer or arthritis.

In one of his early attempts to tease out why rates of cardiovascular disease varied in numerous U. S. states, Syme found that the ‘culturally mobile’, as he began to call them — those who’d moved geographically from one societal culture to something quite different, particularly those who’d moved from farms to white collar city jobs – went on to get heart disease. This connection prevailed even when he’d eliminated other factors, such as smoking, blood pressure and all the other supposed major risk factors of cardiovascular disease. Social mobility – moving outside society as you knew it – made you ill.

At the School of Public Health at Berkeley, Syme teamed up with Reuell Stallones, another of Berkeley’s professors, to test his migration hypothesis with the perfect population: the Japanese who’d migrated to Hawaii and California.

The Japanese paradoxAs a race, the Japanese fascinate any student of epidemiology because they are such an apparent paradox: they have the lowest heart disease in the world, despite the fact that smoking — one of the biggest risk factors of heart disease — is virtually universal.

Japan’s longevity statistics confound all our expectations about what is required to live a long and healthy life. In fact, Japan produces the world’s largest number of centenarians: almost 18,000 people live to 100 — many of them smokers.
Epidemiologists find transplanted societies particularly instructive, as they afford an opportunity to examine just how a particular community fares when confronted with profound social, cultural or dietary upheaval.
Syme and Stallones examined heart disease risk, plus dietary factors and any social change in a pool of 12,000 men, divided up among those who lived in Japan and two groups that had emigrated to Hawaii or northern California.

Stallones was interested in whether the Japanese had low rates of heart disease because of their low-fat diet, and whether heart disease went up when the Japanese, who maintain an excellent low-fat diet in their home country adopt a typical burger-and-fries American diet, but Syme was interested in the social factor: whether moving countries and cultures was so destabilizing that it caused heart disease.

The results confounded both their expectations. The Japanese men migrating to California had five times the heart disease of those in Japan, while the heart-disease levels in Hawaii were midway between the two, so simply migrating somewhere else didn’t automatically cause disease.

Nevertheless, the results appeared to be completely independent of any of the usual supposed risk factors of heart disease, like smoking, high blood pressure, diet or cholesterol count; in fact, the Japanese population studied contained the highest number of smokers, but the lowest levels of heart disease.

Amazingly enough, their results also appeared independent of any dietary changes. Whatever the Japanese ate — whether tofu or a Big Mac — had no bearing whatever on their propensity to heart disease.

Although changes in the dietary habits made no difference in terms of heart disease, the kind of society the transplants created for themselves did. Those Japanese men who’d adopted American cultural ways suffered the increase in heart disease, while those who’d retained their traditional culture had the lowest levels of heart disease — comparable to Japanese men back home.

The most traditional group of the Japanese Americans had a heart attack rate as low as their fellow Japanese living in Japan, while those who’d adopted the Western go-ahead lifestyle increased their heart attack incidence by three to five times. These differences could not be accounted for by any of the usual risk factors. Those with social networks and social support were protect against heart disease — regardless of whether they smoked or suffer from high blood pressure.
In search of the x-factorSyme was intrigued enough by these results to travel to Japan in search of the missing x-factor of impregnable health. He interviewed scores of the Japanese to find out the single factor that most distinguished the social fabric of America from that of Japan.

What most marked their culture from that of America, his interviewees repeated in interview after interview, was that Americans were lonely. Anyone could see that. Americans even walked on the street alone. The Japanese, particularly in southern Japan, maintained tight-knit social groups that were mutually supportive, as was the work environment. Joining a business is not unlike marrying into a family; it is, in most instances, a relationship for life.

In southern Japan, the Japanese even create ‘moai’, a kind of life-long social and financial safety net made up by the contributions of your friends and loved ones.
The heart attack rates of the Californian Japanese-Americans had nothing to do with moving from Japan, but everything to do with losing the close social ties that proved to be Japan’s secret weapon in staying healthy.